In defining the problem you may use certain words or items that are difficult to measure and/or the understanding of which may vary from respondent to respondent. In a research study it is important to develop, define or establish a set of rules, indicators or yardsticks in order to establish clearly the meaning of such words/items. It is sometimes also important to define clearly the study population from which you need to obtain the required information. When you define concepts that you plan to use either in your research problem and/or in identifying the study population in a measurable form, they are called working definitions or operational definitions. You must understand that these working definitions that you develop are only for the purpose of your study and could be quite different to legal definitions, or those used by others. As the understanding of concepts can vary markedly from person to person, your working definitions will inform your readers what exactly you mean by the concepts that you have used in your study. The following example studies help to explain this. The main objectives are:
1. To find out the number of children living below the poverty line in Australia.
2. To ascertain the impact of immigration on family roles among immigrants.
3. To measure the effectiveness of a retraining programme designed to help young people.
Although these objectives clearly state the main thrust of the studies, they are not specific in terms of the main variables to be studied and the study populations. You cannot count the number of children living below the poverty line until you decide what constitutes the poverty line and how to determine it;
you cannot find out the impact of immigration on family roles unless you identify which roles constitute family roles; and you cannot measure effectiveness until you define what effectiveness is. On the other hand, it is equally important to decide exactly what you mean by ‘children’, ‘immigrants’ or ‘young’.
Up to what age will you consider a person to be a child (i.e. 5, 10, 15 or 18)? Who would you consider young? A person 15 years of age, 20, 25 or 30? Who would you consider to be an immigrant? A person who immigrated 40, 20 or 5 years ago? In addition, are you going to consider immigrants from every country or only a few? In many cases you need to develop operational definitions for the variables and concepts you are studying and for the population that becomes the source of the information for your study. Table 4.2 lists the concepts and the population groups to be operationalised for the above examples.
TABLE 4.2 Operationalisation of concepts and the study populations
In a research study you need to define these clearly in order to avoid ambiguity and confusion. This is achieved through the process of developing operational/working definitions. You need to develop operational definitions for the major concepts you are using in your study and develop a framework for the study population enabling you to select appropriate respondents.
Operational definitions may differ from day-to-day meanings as well as dictionary or legal definitions. These meanings may not be helpful in identifying either your study population or the concepts you are studying. Though in daily life you often use words such as ‘children’, ‘youth’ and
‘immigrant’ loosely, you need to be more specific when using them in a research study. You should work through your own definitions.
Operational definitions give an operational meaning to the study population and the concepts used. It is only through making your procedures explicit that you can validly describe, explain, verify and test. It is important to remember that there are no rules for deciding if an operational definition is valid. Your arguments must convince others about the appropriateness of your definitions.
Formulating a research problem in qualitative research
The difference in qualitative and quantitative studies starts with the way you formulate your research problem. In quantitative research you strive to be as specific as possible, attempt to narrow the magnitude of your study and develop a framework within which you confine your search. On the other hand, in qualitative research, this specificity in scope, methods and framework is almost completely ignored. You strive to maintain flexibility, openness and freedom to include any new ideas or exclude any aspect that you initially included but later consider not to be relevant. At the initial stage you only identify the main thrust of your study and some specific aspects which you want to find out about.
Qualitative research primarily employs inductive reasoning. In contrast to quantitative research, where a research problem is stated before data collection, in qualitative research the problem is reformulated several times after you have begun the data collection. The research problem as well as data collection strategies are reformulated as necessary throughout data collection either to acquire the ‘totality’ of a phenomenon or to select certain aspects for greater in-depth study.
This flexibility and freedom, though providing you with certain advantages, can also create problems in terms of comparability of the information gathered. It is possible that your areas of search may become markedly different during the preliminary and final stages of data gathering. During the initial developmental phase, many researchers produce a framework of ‘reminders’ (a conceptual framework of enquiry) to ensure that key issues/aspects are covered during discussions with the respondents. As the study progresses, if needs be, issues or themes are added to this framework. This is not a list of questions but reminders that are only used if for some reason the interaction with respondents lacks discussion.
Let us take an example to detail the process of formulation of a research problem in qualitative
research:
Once I supervised a student who was interested in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
She wanted to find out, as she put it, ‘What does it means to have a child with ADHD in the family?’ Of course my first question to her was, ‘What do you mean by “what does it mean”?’ She paused for a while and then said, ‘it means what it means’. I asked her to treat me as one of her respondents and ask the question. She asked me, ‘What does it mean to have a child with ADHD?’
to which my answer was, ‘I do not understand your question. Could you please explain to me the meaning of “what does it mean”?’ She found it difficult to explain and immediately realised the problem with the question. What she thought was very clear to her became quite difficult to explain. It took her a while to explain to me what she had in mind. During the discussion that followed, though she could explain some of the things she had in mind, she realised that she could not go to a respondent with her initial question.
The student knew a family who had a child with ADHD from which her interest in the topic had probably stemmed. I suggested that she have a talk with the mother. She did, and, to her surprise, the mother asked her the same question that I had.
I advised her to read some literature on ADHD and also have informal talks with two families who have a child with ADHD. We decided to select one single mother family and the other where the father and the mother both take responsibility for the child. She was advised to record all the issues and aspects that reflected her understanding of ‘what does it mean’, relating to bringing up a child with ADHD in the family. After going through the above, she developed a list three and a half pages long of the aspects and issues that, according to her, reflected her understanding of ‘what does it mean’. She did not construct any specific questions around these aspects or issues. They served as background for her to raise with potential respondents in case respondents did not come up with issues or aspects for discussion in terms of ‘What does it mean to have a child with ADHD in the family?’
This list brought immense clarification to her thinking about ‘what does it mean’ and served as the basis of her interviews with the families. A number of times during the supervisory sessions she had mentioned that she would not have been able to do much without the conceptual framework. You should not confuse it with the interview guide. The list is a conceptual construction of the thoughts that serve as background and become the basis of discussions in case there is insufficient dialogue with your potential respondents.
Summary
The formulation of a research problem is the most important step in the research process. It is the foundation, in terms of design, on which you build the whole study. Any defects in it will adversely affect the validity and reliability of your study.
There are no specific guidelines but the model suggested in this chapter could serve as a useful framework for the beginner. The seven-step model helps you to narrow your broad area of interest to enable you to decide what specifically you want to study. It is operational in nature and follows a logical sequence that takes the beginner through the complexities of formulating a research problem in a simple and easy-to-understand manner.
It is important to articulate the objectives of your study clearly. Objectives should be specific and free from ambiguity, and each one should relate to only one aspect of the study. They should be under two headings: main objective and subobjectives. Use action- oriented words when writing your objectives.
Formulation of a research problem in qualitative research follows a different path. You do not predetermine the exact nature and extent of the research problem you propose to find answers to.
You continue to modify it as you start finding out more about it. However, it will help you if you develop a conceptual framework of the different aspects of a problem to serve as a backdrop for issues to be discussed with potential respondents.
Developing operational definitions for the concepts that you propose to study is extremely important. This enhances clarity about the issues you are trying to find out about and about the study population you plan to gather information from. It is important that you operationalise both the main variables you are proposing to study and the study population.
For You to Think About
Refamiliarise yourself with the keywords listed at the beginning of this chapter and if you are uncertain about the meaning or application of any of them revisit these in the chapter before moving on.
Identify two or three potential research questions, related to your own academic field or professional area, that would fall under each of the four Ps (as outlined in Table 4.1):
people;
problems;
programs;
phenomena.
For each of these hypothetical research questions, identify which concepts and study
populations would need to be operationally defined. Consider what problems might occur if this was not done.
Select a broad subject area of interest to you and ‘dissect’ it into subareas.